This week’s essayist is Sir Francis Bacon, KC. An English statesman, philosopher and scientist. He died in 1626 in an experiment to discover if snow could be used to preserve meat.
Random side note: The KC in his title refers to King’s Council. It is the same as a QC, the expensive lawyers in the UK. If you’re looking to strike it rich at some point in your life consider the business card industry. When the Queen dies and Prince Charles hits the throne, every QC in the UK, Australia, NZ & Canada will be needing a new card.
This is his answer to that age old qestion: Is it better to be married or single?
Of Marriage and Single Life
By Sir Francis Bacon, KC (1621)
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public. Yet there is great reason that those that have children, should have greatest care of future times; unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. There are some, who though they lead a single life, their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences. Nay, there are some other, that account wife and children, but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride, in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk, Such a one is a great rich man, and another except to it, Yea, but he hath a great charge of children; as if it were an abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life, is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters, to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives, are of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen; for charity will hardly water the ground, where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant, five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly in their hortatives, put men in mind of their wives and children; and I think the despising of marriage amongst the Turks, maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they maybe many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati. Chaste women are often proud and forward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do, if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses. So as a man may have a quarrel to marry, when he will. But yet he was reputed one of the wise men, that made answer to the question, when a man should marry, - A young man not yet, an elder man not at all. It is often seen that bad husbands, have very good wives; whether it be, that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness, when it comes; or that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
[Essay Monday] J.G. Ballard
J.G.Ballard died on the weekend.
This is one of his weirder pieces.
It is a report on a series of "experiments" to measure the psychosexual appeal of Ronald Reagan.
It was his response to Reagan being made governor of California and the rise of what he called "media politicians". Politicians who realised the power of TV and the fact that audiences rarely listen to what you are saying but rather watch how you are saying it.
WHY I WANT TO FUCK RONALD REAGAN
by JG Ballard [1967]
RONALD REAGAN AND THE CONCEPTUAL AUTO DISASTER. Numerous studies have been conducted upon patients in terminal paresis (GPI), placing Reagan in a series of simulated auto crashes, e.g. multiple pileups, head-on collisions, motorcade attacks (fantasies of Presidential assassinations remained a continuing preoccupation, subject showing a marked polymorphic fixation on windshields and rear trunk assemblies). Powerful erotic fantasies of an anal-sadistic surrounded the image of the Presidential contender.
Subjects were required to construct the optimum auto disaster victim by placing a replica of Reagan’s head on the unretouched photographs of crash fatalities.
In 82% of cases massive rear-end collisions were selected with a preference for expressed fecal matter and rectal hemorrhages. Further tests were conducted to define the optimum model-year. These indicate that a three year model lapse with child victims provide the maximum audience excitation (confirmed by manufacturers’ studies of the optimum auto disaster). It is hoped to construct a rectal modulous of Reagan and the auto disaster of maximized audience arousal.
Motion picture studies of Ronald Reagan reveal characteristic patterns of facial tones and musculature associated with homoerotic behavior. The continuing tension of buccal sphincters and the recessive tongue role tally with earlier studies of facial rigidity (cf., Adolf Hitler, Nixon). Slow-motion cine films of campaign speeches exercised a marked erotic effect upon an audience of spastic children. Even with mature adults the verbal material was found to have a minimal effect, as demonstrated by substitution of an edited tape giving diametrically opposed opinions...
INCIDENCE OF ORGASMS IN FANTASIES OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH RONALD REAGAN. Patients were provided with assembly kit photographs of sexual partners during intercourse. In each case Reagan’s face was super imposed upon the original partner. Vaginal intercourse with "Reagan" proved uniformly disappointing, producing orgasm in 2% of subjects.
Axillary, buccal, navel, aural, and orbital modes produced proximal erections. The preferred mode of entry overwhelmingly proved to be the rectal. After a preliminary course in anatomy it was found that the caecum and transverse colon also provided excellent sites for excitation. In an extreme 12% of cases, the simulated anus of post-costolomy surgery generated spontaneous orgasm in 98% of penetrations. Multiple-track cine-films were constructed of "Reagan" in intercourse during (a) campaign speeches, (b) rear-end auto collisions with one and three year model changes, (c) with rear exhaust assemblies...
SEXUAL FANTASIES IN CONNECTION WITH RONALD REAGAN. The genitalia of the Presidential contender exercised a continuing fascination. A series of imaginary genitalia were constructed using (a) the mouth parts of Jacqueline Kennedy, (b) a Cadillac, (c) the assembly kid prepuce of President Johnson...In 89% of cases, the constructed genitalia generated a high incidence of self-induced orgasm. Tests indicate the masturbatory nature of the Presidential contender’s posture. Dolls consisting of plastic models of Reagan’s alternate genitalia were found to have a disturbing effect on deprived children.
REAGAN'S HAIRSTYLE. Studies were conducted on the marked fascination exercised by the Presidential contender’s hairstyle. 65% of male subjects made positive connections between the hairstyle and their own pubic hair. A series of optimum hairstyles were constructed.
THE CONCEPTUAL ROLE OF REAGAN. Fragments of Reagan’s cinetized postures were used in the construction of model psychodramas in which the Reagan-figure played the role of husband, doctor, insurance salesman, marriage counselor, etc.
The failure of these roles to express any meaning reveals the nonfunctional character of Reagan. Reagan’s success therefore indicates society’s periodic need to re-conceptualize its political leaders. Reagan thus appears as a series of posture concepts, basic equations which reformulate the roles of aggression and anality. Reagan’s personality. The profound anality of the Presidential contender may be expected to dominate the United States in the coming years. By contrast the late JFK remained the prototype of the oral subject, usually conceived in pre-pubertal terms. In further studies sadistic psychopaths were given the task of devising sex fantasies involving Reagan. Results confirm the probability of Presidential figures being perceived primarily in genital terms; the face of LB Johnson is clearly genital in significant appearance--the nasal prepuce, scrotal jaw, etc. Faces were seen as either circumcised (JFK, Khrushchev) or uncircumcised (LBJ, Adenauer). In assembly-kit tests Reagan’s face was uniformly perceived as a penile erection. Patients were encouraged to devise the optimum sex-death of Ronald Reagan.
This is one of his weirder pieces.
It is a report on a series of "experiments" to measure the psychosexual appeal of Ronald Reagan.
It was his response to Reagan being made governor of California and the rise of what he called "media politicians". Politicians who realised the power of TV and the fact that audiences rarely listen to what you are saying but rather watch how you are saying it.
WHY I WANT TO FUCK RONALD REAGAN
by JG Ballard [1967]
RONALD REAGAN AND THE CONCEPTUAL AUTO DISASTER. Numerous studies have been conducted upon patients in terminal paresis (GPI), placing Reagan in a series of simulated auto crashes, e.g. multiple pileups, head-on collisions, motorcade attacks (fantasies of Presidential assassinations remained a continuing preoccupation, subject showing a marked polymorphic fixation on windshields and rear trunk assemblies). Powerful erotic fantasies of an anal-sadistic surrounded the image of the Presidential contender.
Subjects were required to construct the optimum auto disaster victim by placing a replica of Reagan’s head on the unretouched photographs of crash fatalities.
In 82% of cases massive rear-end collisions were selected with a preference for expressed fecal matter and rectal hemorrhages. Further tests were conducted to define the optimum model-year. These indicate that a three year model lapse with child victims provide the maximum audience excitation (confirmed by manufacturers’ studies of the optimum auto disaster). It is hoped to construct a rectal modulous of Reagan and the auto disaster of maximized audience arousal.
Motion picture studies of Ronald Reagan reveal characteristic patterns of facial tones and musculature associated with homoerotic behavior. The continuing tension of buccal sphincters and the recessive tongue role tally with earlier studies of facial rigidity (cf., Adolf Hitler, Nixon). Slow-motion cine films of campaign speeches exercised a marked erotic effect upon an audience of spastic children. Even with mature adults the verbal material was found to have a minimal effect, as demonstrated by substitution of an edited tape giving diametrically opposed opinions...
INCIDENCE OF ORGASMS IN FANTASIES OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH RONALD REAGAN. Patients were provided with assembly kit photographs of sexual partners during intercourse. In each case Reagan’s face was super imposed upon the original partner. Vaginal intercourse with "Reagan" proved uniformly disappointing, producing orgasm in 2% of subjects.
Axillary, buccal, navel, aural, and orbital modes produced proximal erections. The preferred mode of entry overwhelmingly proved to be the rectal. After a preliminary course in anatomy it was found that the caecum and transverse colon also provided excellent sites for excitation. In an extreme 12% of cases, the simulated anus of post-costolomy surgery generated spontaneous orgasm in 98% of penetrations. Multiple-track cine-films were constructed of "Reagan" in intercourse during (a) campaign speeches, (b) rear-end auto collisions with one and three year model changes, (c) with rear exhaust assemblies...
SEXUAL FANTASIES IN CONNECTION WITH RONALD REAGAN. The genitalia of the Presidential contender exercised a continuing fascination. A series of imaginary genitalia were constructed using (a) the mouth parts of Jacqueline Kennedy, (b) a Cadillac, (c) the assembly kid prepuce of President Johnson...In 89% of cases, the constructed genitalia generated a high incidence of self-induced orgasm. Tests indicate the masturbatory nature of the Presidential contender’s posture. Dolls consisting of plastic models of Reagan’s alternate genitalia were found to have a disturbing effect on deprived children.
REAGAN'S HAIRSTYLE. Studies were conducted on the marked fascination exercised by the Presidential contender’s hairstyle. 65% of male subjects made positive connections between the hairstyle and their own pubic hair. A series of optimum hairstyles were constructed.
THE CONCEPTUAL ROLE OF REAGAN. Fragments of Reagan’s cinetized postures were used in the construction of model psychodramas in which the Reagan-figure played the role of husband, doctor, insurance salesman, marriage counselor, etc.
The failure of these roles to express any meaning reveals the nonfunctional character of Reagan. Reagan’s success therefore indicates society’s periodic need to re-conceptualize its political leaders. Reagan thus appears as a series of posture concepts, basic equations which reformulate the roles of aggression and anality. Reagan’s personality. The profound anality of the Presidential contender may be expected to dominate the United States in the coming years. By contrast the late JFK remained the prototype of the oral subject, usually conceived in pre-pubertal terms. In further studies sadistic psychopaths were given the task of devising sex fantasies involving Reagan. Results confirm the probability of Presidential figures being perceived primarily in genital terms; the face of LB Johnson is clearly genital in significant appearance--the nasal prepuce, scrotal jaw, etc. Faces were seen as either circumcised (JFK, Khrushchev) or uncircumcised (LBJ, Adenauer). In assembly-kit tests Reagan’s face was uniformly perceived as a penile erection. Patients were encouraged to devise the optimum sex-death of Ronald Reagan.
Friday, April 17, 2009
[Essay Friday] no.10
This week’s essayist is Mark Twain.
William Faulkner called him the father of American literature. And the New York Times called William Faulkner the greatest American writer of all time. So that makes him the father of the greatest American literature of all time. I.E. He’s worth reading.
We mainly know him for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. But he also had a more cutting side to his writing.
Like this.
An essay he wrote in response to war. In particular to the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902.
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain [1904]
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
“God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!”
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the “whole” of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory-- must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
William Faulkner called him the father of American literature. And the New York Times called William Faulkner the greatest American writer of all time. So that makes him the father of the greatest American literature of all time. I.E. He’s worth reading.
We mainly know him for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. But he also had a more cutting side to his writing.
Like this.
An essay he wrote in response to war. In particular to the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902.
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain [1904]
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
“God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!”
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the “whole” of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory-- must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
[Essay Friday] no.9
It's Easter. So I wanted to find something about death, redemption and resurrection. But it is also a four day weekend so I found an essay on laziness.
It is by Christopher Morley. 1920s author, essayist and journalist. He wrote Kitty Foyle and was the self-appointed chairman of the Three Hours for Lunch Club.
On laziness
Christopher Morley [1921]
To-day we rather intended to write an essay on Laziness, but were too indolent to do so.
The sort of thing we had in mind to write would have been exceedingly persuasive. We intended to discourse a little in favour of a greater appreciation of Indolence as a benign factor in human affairs.
It is our observation that every time we get into trouble it is due to not having been lazy enough. Unhappily, we were born with a certain fund of energy. We have been hustling about for a number of years now, and it doesn’t seem to get us anything but tribulation. Henceforward we are going to make a determined effort to be more languid and demure. It is the bustling man who always gets put on committees, who is asked to solve the problems of other people and neglect his own.
The man who is really, thoroughly, and philosophically slothful is the only thoroughly happy man. It is the happy man who benefits the world. The conclusion is inescapable.
We remember a saying about the meek inheriting the earth. The truly meek man is the lazy man. He is too modest to believe that any ferment and hubbub of his can ameliorate the earth or assuage the perplexities of humanity.
O. Henry said once that one should be careful to distinguish laziness from dignified repose. Alas, that was a mere quibble. Laziness is always dignified, it is always reposeful. Philosophical laziness, we mean. The kind of laziness that is based upon a carefully reasoned analysis of experience. Acquired laziness. We have no respect for those who were born lazy; it is like being born a millionaire: they cannot appreciate their bliss. It is the man who has hammered his laziness out of the stubborn material of life for whom we chant praise and allelulia.
The laziest man we know—we do not like to mention his name, as the brutal world does not yet recognize sloth at its community value—is one of the greatest poets in this country; one of the keenest satirists; one of the most rectilinear thinkers. He began life in the customary hustling way. He was always too busy to enjoy himself. He became surrounded by eager people who came to him to solve their problems. “It’s a queer thing,” he said sadly; “no one ever comes to me asking for help in solving my problems.” Finally the light broke upon him. He stopped answering letters, buying lunches for casual friends and visitors from out of town, he stopped lending money to old college pals and frittering his time away on all the useless minor matters that pester the good-natured. He sat down in a secluded café with his cheek against a seidel of dark beer and began to caress the universe with his intellect.
The most damning argument against the Germans is that they were not lazy enough. In the middle of Europe, a thoroughly disillusioned, indolent and delightful old continent, the Germans were a dangerous mass of energy and bumptious push. If the Germans had been as lazy, as indifferent, and as righteously laissez-fairish as their neighbours, the world would have been spared a great deal.
People respect laziness. If you once get a reputation for complete, immovable, and reckless indolence the world will leave you to your own thoughts, which are generally rather interesting.
Doctor Johnson, who was one of the world’s great philosophers, was lazy. Only yesterday our friend the Caliph showed us an extraordinarily interesting thing. It was a little leather-bound notebook in which Boswell jotted down memoranda of his talks with the old doctor. These notes he afterward worked up into the immortal Biography. And lo and behold, what was the very first entry in this treasured little relic?
Doctor Johnson told me in going to Ilam from Ashbourne, 22 September, 1777, that the way the plan of his Dictionary came to be addressed to Lord Chesterfield was this: He had neglected to write it by the time appointed. Dodsley suggested a desire to have it addressed to Lord C. Mr. J. laid hold of this as an excuse for delay, that it might be better done perhaps, and let Dodsley have his desire. Mr. Johnson said to his friend, Doctor Bathurst: “Now if any good comes of my addressing to Lord Chesterfield it will be ascribed to deep policy and address, when, in fact, it was only a casual excuse for laziness.”
Thus we see that it was sheer laziness that led to the greatest triumph of Doctor Johnson’s life, the noble and memorable letter to Chesterfield in 1775.
Mind your business is a good counsel; but mind your idleness also. It’s a tragic thing to make a business of your mind. Save your mind to amuse yourself with.
The lazy man does not stand in the way of progress. When he sees progress roaring down upon him he steps nimbly out of the way. The lazy man doesn’t (in the vulgar phrase) pass the buck. He lets the buck pass him. We have always secretly envied our lazy friends. Now we are going to join them. We have burned our boats or our bridges or whatever it is that one burns on the eve of a momentous decision.
Writing on this congenial topic has roused us up to quite a pitch of enthusiasm and energy.
It is by Christopher Morley. 1920s author, essayist and journalist. He wrote Kitty Foyle and was the self-appointed chairman of the Three Hours for Lunch Club.
On laziness
Christopher Morley [1921]
To-day we rather intended to write an essay on Laziness, but were too indolent to do so.
The sort of thing we had in mind to write would have been exceedingly persuasive. We intended to discourse a little in favour of a greater appreciation of Indolence as a benign factor in human affairs.
It is our observation that every time we get into trouble it is due to not having been lazy enough. Unhappily, we were born with a certain fund of energy. We have been hustling about for a number of years now, and it doesn’t seem to get us anything but tribulation. Henceforward we are going to make a determined effort to be more languid and demure. It is the bustling man who always gets put on committees, who is asked to solve the problems of other people and neglect his own.
The man who is really, thoroughly, and philosophically slothful is the only thoroughly happy man. It is the happy man who benefits the world. The conclusion is inescapable.
We remember a saying about the meek inheriting the earth. The truly meek man is the lazy man. He is too modest to believe that any ferment and hubbub of his can ameliorate the earth or assuage the perplexities of humanity.
O. Henry said once that one should be careful to distinguish laziness from dignified repose. Alas, that was a mere quibble. Laziness is always dignified, it is always reposeful. Philosophical laziness, we mean. The kind of laziness that is based upon a carefully reasoned analysis of experience. Acquired laziness. We have no respect for those who were born lazy; it is like being born a millionaire: they cannot appreciate their bliss. It is the man who has hammered his laziness out of the stubborn material of life for whom we chant praise and allelulia.
The laziest man we know—we do not like to mention his name, as the brutal world does not yet recognize sloth at its community value—is one of the greatest poets in this country; one of the keenest satirists; one of the most rectilinear thinkers. He began life in the customary hustling way. He was always too busy to enjoy himself. He became surrounded by eager people who came to him to solve their problems. “It’s a queer thing,” he said sadly; “no one ever comes to me asking for help in solving my problems.” Finally the light broke upon him. He stopped answering letters, buying lunches for casual friends and visitors from out of town, he stopped lending money to old college pals and frittering his time away on all the useless minor matters that pester the good-natured. He sat down in a secluded café with his cheek against a seidel of dark beer and began to caress the universe with his intellect.
The most damning argument against the Germans is that they were not lazy enough. In the middle of Europe, a thoroughly disillusioned, indolent and delightful old continent, the Germans were a dangerous mass of energy and bumptious push. If the Germans had been as lazy, as indifferent, and as righteously laissez-fairish as their neighbours, the world would have been spared a great deal.
People respect laziness. If you once get a reputation for complete, immovable, and reckless indolence the world will leave you to your own thoughts, which are generally rather interesting.
Doctor Johnson, who was one of the world’s great philosophers, was lazy. Only yesterday our friend the Caliph showed us an extraordinarily interesting thing. It was a little leather-bound notebook in which Boswell jotted down memoranda of his talks with the old doctor. These notes he afterward worked up into the immortal Biography. And lo and behold, what was the very first entry in this treasured little relic?
Doctor Johnson told me in going to Ilam from Ashbourne, 22 September, 1777, that the way the plan of his Dictionary came to be addressed to Lord Chesterfield was this: He had neglected to write it by the time appointed. Dodsley suggested a desire to have it addressed to Lord C. Mr. J. laid hold of this as an excuse for delay, that it might be better done perhaps, and let Dodsley have his desire. Mr. Johnson said to his friend, Doctor Bathurst: “Now if any good comes of my addressing to Lord Chesterfield it will be ascribed to deep policy and address, when, in fact, it was only a casual excuse for laziness.”
Thus we see that it was sheer laziness that led to the greatest triumph of Doctor Johnson’s life, the noble and memorable letter to Chesterfield in 1775.
Mind your business is a good counsel; but mind your idleness also. It’s a tragic thing to make a business of your mind. Save your mind to amuse yourself with.
The lazy man does not stand in the way of progress. When he sees progress roaring down upon him he steps nimbly out of the way. The lazy man doesn’t (in the vulgar phrase) pass the buck. He lets the buck pass him. We have always secretly envied our lazy friends. Now we are going to join them. We have burned our boats or our bridges or whatever it is that one burns on the eve of a momentous decision.
Writing on this congenial topic has roused us up to quite a pitch of enthusiasm and energy.
[Essay Friday] no.8
This week’s essay was found by Craig W. One of the art directors I work with.
A funny piece by the rightwing American writer Daniel Flynn. His books include Why the Left hate America and Intellectual Morons: How ideology makes smart people fall for stupid ideas.
He served with the US Marines. Claims to be banned for life from all Black Panther reunions. And in the tradition of conservative politics, he is a real patriot but hates 99% of the people who live in his country. This doesn’t preclude him from being funny. In fact it probably makes him even funnier.
This is his rant on Beer Nerds
The Labor Day Beer-Nerd Fatwa
Daniel. J. Flynn [2007]
Something wrong invaded my sight in the beer aisle, namely, an obnoxiously named product called Whale Tail Pale Ale. The name sounds like a second grader's poem. It grabbed my attention, and I guess that's the point. But it also raised my ire. This silly-sounding beer (Yeah, "ale." That's right. I'm calling you beer!) cost $10.59 for a four pack. Momentarily stunned that four packs existed, it nearly escaped my notice that, through some marketing Jedi Mind Trick, the beer company charges more for four beers than most other beer companies charge for twelve.
Beer is supposed to be sold in divisions of six, decree the beer gods. Who drinks four beers? Beer nerds who drink Whale Tail Pale Ale, that's who. Beer nerds? They are effeminate men who would rather be drinking wine but drink beer to convince themselves, their wives, and everyone around them of their manliness. They would chant an affirmation, but Whale Tail Pale Ale works just as well. The $10.59 price and deliberately quirky four-pack packaging says to the beer nerd: buy me. It says to the beer drinker: smash me.
So fascinated/disgusted by the $10.59 Whale Tail Pail Ale, I scanned the beer aisle last night for other offenders. I found something bedecked in fleur-di-lis called Don de Dieu, four of which cost $9.99. This was a deal compared to Scotland's Legends Skull Splitter--$18.59 for a four-pack! Brewed closer to home is the appropriately named Midas Touch; $12.59 will get you four of these "handcrafted ancient ale," made from "barley, honey, white muscat grapes & safron." They are not going for that freeze-wave Coors Light Silver Bullet Train demographic, are they?
There's something amiss at package stores, (that's what we call store-type establishments that sell alcohol in the northeast). I inveighed against excessive prices at bars in a post last year. Now it's the packies that have brought out the Bill Bixby in me. Beer nerds, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
The packaging and price of microbrews hypnotize beer nerds into believing that they're buying great beer. Someone is laughing hard counting his money. My strong suspicion is that there is no such thing as a microbrewery, just one enormous Anheuser-Busch style megacorporation that produces one beer with a wide variety of packaging. The formula goes something like this: 1. Devise a gonzo name, e.g., Salty Dog's Magiclicious Wheat Stout or Big Bob's Bongo Bock; 2. Splash lots of color on the packaging, as if one were buying not a man's beer but a child's juice box; 3. Say that your beer is brewed in Vermont; 4. Charge for a six-pack (or even a four pack) what domestic brands charge for a twelve-pack; 5. Make the beer heavy enough so that drinking twelve of them at a sitting will surely induce vomiting, or at least the feeling that one has eaten four loaves of bread.
The economics of beer works in strange ways. Instead of low prices attracting consumers, they scare them away. High prices convey the idea that this is a good beer. Low prices are the kiss of death. Budweiser, Busch, and even Schlitz are all good beers who hang out with a bad crowd. If you fraternize in the cooler with Meisterbrau and Naragansett enough, people are going to start thinking you are like them. But Schlitz, Busch, and company are different, even if their prices are the same. Don't tell that to beer snobs, who run from a $15 case as if it were botulism on sale.
Stella Artois is more their style. The advertisement slogans, "Reassuringly Expensive" and "Perfection Has Its Price," are a far cry from "Put a Little Weekend in Your Week." But they make the point: you are better than the people who drink Coors. It's as if one separates oneself from the riffraff by the beer one drinks. This is what Thorstein Veblen (a beer nerd's name if there ever was one) called "conspicuous consumption." But true beer drinkers know that it's your behavior, and not the beer you drink, that should be conspicuous.
It's labor day, and as a working man--okay, okay, I spend my days reading and writing, but I once hauled hot dogs up the grandstand at Fenway Park, cleaned latrines in the Marines, and bagged groceries for minimum wage--I protest white-collar, snob beers. I protest them by walking past the Whale's Tail Pale Ales and Scotland's Legendary Skull Splitters of the beer world, my nose high in the air, going straight to the bad-beer neighborhood end of the cooler, and grasping a case of Busch. This weekend, every flipped top, every first sip, every finished bottle slammed down on the table, will strike a blow against beer nerds.
A funny piece by the rightwing American writer Daniel Flynn. His books include Why the Left hate America and Intellectual Morons: How ideology makes smart people fall for stupid ideas.
He served with the US Marines. Claims to be banned for life from all Black Panther reunions. And in the tradition of conservative politics, he is a real patriot but hates 99% of the people who live in his country. This doesn’t preclude him from being funny. In fact it probably makes him even funnier.
This is his rant on Beer Nerds
The Labor Day Beer-Nerd Fatwa
Daniel. J. Flynn [2007]
Something wrong invaded my sight in the beer aisle, namely, an obnoxiously named product called Whale Tail Pale Ale. The name sounds like a second grader's poem. It grabbed my attention, and I guess that's the point. But it also raised my ire. This silly-sounding beer (Yeah, "ale." That's right. I'm calling you beer!) cost $10.59 for a four pack. Momentarily stunned that four packs existed, it nearly escaped my notice that, through some marketing Jedi Mind Trick, the beer company charges more for four beers than most other beer companies charge for twelve.
Beer is supposed to be sold in divisions of six, decree the beer gods. Who drinks four beers? Beer nerds who drink Whale Tail Pale Ale, that's who. Beer nerds? They are effeminate men who would rather be drinking wine but drink beer to convince themselves, their wives, and everyone around them of their manliness. They would chant an affirmation, but Whale Tail Pale Ale works just as well. The $10.59 price and deliberately quirky four-pack packaging says to the beer nerd: buy me. It says to the beer drinker: smash me.
So fascinated/disgusted by the $10.59 Whale Tail Pail Ale, I scanned the beer aisle last night for other offenders. I found something bedecked in fleur-di-lis called Don de Dieu, four of which cost $9.99. This was a deal compared to Scotland's Legends Skull Splitter--$18.59 for a four-pack! Brewed closer to home is the appropriately named Midas Touch; $12.59 will get you four of these "handcrafted ancient ale," made from "barley, honey, white muscat grapes & safron." They are not going for that freeze-wave Coors Light Silver Bullet Train demographic, are they?
There's something amiss at package stores, (that's what we call store-type establishments that sell alcohol in the northeast). I inveighed against excessive prices at bars in a post last year. Now it's the packies that have brought out the Bill Bixby in me. Beer nerds, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
The packaging and price of microbrews hypnotize beer nerds into believing that they're buying great beer. Someone is laughing hard counting his money. My strong suspicion is that there is no such thing as a microbrewery, just one enormous Anheuser-Busch style megacorporation that produces one beer with a wide variety of packaging. The formula goes something like this: 1. Devise a gonzo name, e.g., Salty Dog's Magiclicious Wheat Stout or Big Bob's Bongo Bock; 2. Splash lots of color on the packaging, as if one were buying not a man's beer but a child's juice box; 3. Say that your beer is brewed in Vermont; 4. Charge for a six-pack (or even a four pack) what domestic brands charge for a twelve-pack; 5. Make the beer heavy enough so that drinking twelve of them at a sitting will surely induce vomiting, or at least the feeling that one has eaten four loaves of bread.
The economics of beer works in strange ways. Instead of low prices attracting consumers, they scare them away. High prices convey the idea that this is a good beer. Low prices are the kiss of death. Budweiser, Busch, and even Schlitz are all good beers who hang out with a bad crowd. If you fraternize in the cooler with Meisterbrau and Naragansett enough, people are going to start thinking you are like them. But Schlitz, Busch, and company are different, even if their prices are the same. Don't tell that to beer snobs, who run from a $15 case as if it were botulism on sale.
Stella Artois is more their style. The advertisement slogans, "Reassuringly Expensive" and "Perfection Has Its Price," are a far cry from "Put a Little Weekend in Your Week." But they make the point: you are better than the people who drink Coors. It's as if one separates oneself from the riffraff by the beer one drinks. This is what Thorstein Veblen (a beer nerd's name if there ever was one) called "conspicuous consumption." But true beer drinkers know that it's your behavior, and not the beer you drink, that should be conspicuous.
It's labor day, and as a working man--okay, okay, I spend my days reading and writing, but I once hauled hot dogs up the grandstand at Fenway Park, cleaned latrines in the Marines, and bagged groceries for minimum wage--I protest white-collar, snob beers. I protest them by walking past the Whale's Tail Pale Ales and Scotland's Legendary Skull Splitters of the beer world, my nose high in the air, going straight to the bad-beer neighborhood end of the cooler, and grasping a case of Busch. This weekend, every flipped top, every first sip, every finished bottle slammed down on the table, will strike a blow against beer nerds.
[Essay Friday] no.7
Sport is a big thing in our agency. So this week a piece from a sports writer.
Oarabile Mosikare is from Francistown, Botswana. Where he writes for Mmegi – Botswana’s leading newspaper. He is not famous or anything but this is a great piece. It about his experiences as the owner of a football club. It is a little bit different to the Roman Abramovich story.
It has a few local words or people that you may not be familiar with. Jomo Sono and Patrice Motsepe are big South African football club owners. And dagga is the local word for marijuana.
King of 'Fong Kong' Football
Oarabile Mosikare (2009)
In my wildest dreams I never thought I would own a soccer team. But here I am at 29, possibly the world's youngest team owner. And the most stressed in Botswana, if not the world. It's no joke to run a team. Ask Jomo Sono, Patrice Motsepe and Roman Abramovich.
Of course I'm still waiting to become as rich and powerful as they are. My team is just a social soccer side playing in an informal league known round these parts as the "Sunday Times" because of when we play.
The Sunday Times "league" has taken Botswana by storm. Matches are organised mostly by word of mouth and the teams include a few old men, but the bulk are wild and badly behaved youngsters -- some as young as 15.
My team -- Industrial Super Stars, so named after the scrapyard area in Itekeng where the majority of our players live -- is made up of disgruntled and uncontrollable alcoholics without any soccer skills to boast about. My bunch was rejected by other Sunday Times soccer clubs.
In my quest to be Motsepe, I took the opportunity to name and organise the team. But finding them before a match is more complicated, especially at the end of the month. After payday, the team owner has to endure moving from one drinking hole to another in search of his players.
One of the unique things about the Sunday Times soccer league is that the usual football rules and regulations are relaxed. So relaxed, most of them don't apply. A player can be substituted and come back into play later, as many times as he likes. A referee might smoke a cigarette during the game. The referee can also be substituted if one team feels he is biased in favour of the opponents. When this happens, the ref is likely to express his disgust at the decision by donning the kit of the team that stood by him when he was subjected to insults.
Alcohol and dagga abound and the players use them with abandon. Because most players are unemployed -- especially in my team -- pints of Chibuku, a traditional brew, are a regular feature at the games.
These players don't care if team "owners" and officials such as me are present when they take their dagga. They are very uncouth. They spew venom. They don't want to be shouted at like professional coaches shout at their players. They threaten to decamp to another side and there are plenty to choose from at the bottom of the league barrel.
In the worst scenario they threaten to form their own team that will be run and controlled by them without being subjected to civil behaviour lectures. The most foul-mouthed will tell you to your face that you don't own them and that just because you occasionally buy them pints of Chibuku, this doesn't make you better than them.
I have been told to go and write shit in the papers whenever I called some of my players to order. "Just because you write for newspapers doesn't mean you can lecture to us about good behaviour," I have been told countless times. It is a bit unfair because other football team owners, such as Sono, Motsepe and Abramovich, are not subjected to this treatment. By the same token, just because my bank balance hovers close to zero most of the time, it doesn't mean I should be subjected to this sort of treatment, I mutter to myself.
Although I'm not given the respect that I deserve, the team is happy to use the water in my house to wash the kit. I'm also the custodian of the kit, which is a raw deal. Come half time nobody listens to the coach. They don't want team talk. They just want alcohol and that foul-smelling green stuff.
One of the Industrial Super Stars officials is my younger brother. One recent Sunday we Mosikares were accused of having hijacked the team. Drunken debates ensued. I came up with the idea of forming a rival team to the neighbouring Itekeng Soccer Club when I realised that the majority of my present players were not being given a chance to prove themselves. To explain the set-up for a South African audience, let's put it this way: if Industrial Super Stars were a political party it would be Cope; Itekeng Soccer Club would be the ANC.
My breakaway plan was hatched in the middle of the month when I did not have money to buy team kit. So one of my cousins -- among those now accusing me and my brother of hijacking control -- went and bought the kit at one of the Chinese shops in town. It is a "fong kong" kit costing less than P200 (about R250).
I wanted to refund him so that I could be left to run my Industrial Super Stars the way I liked, but he refused. My cousin can be difficult to deal with. On the field he will agree to be substituted only when he wants to smoke a cigarette.
In our way my team is like a close-knit family. And like all families, we bicker. It's just as well we hardly ever win any matches -- when we do, the boys drink until they drop.
Oarabile Mosikare is from Francistown, Botswana. Where he writes for Mmegi – Botswana’s leading newspaper. He is not famous or anything but this is a great piece. It about his experiences as the owner of a football club. It is a little bit different to the Roman Abramovich story.
It has a few local words or people that you may not be familiar with. Jomo Sono and Patrice Motsepe are big South African football club owners. And dagga is the local word for marijuana.
King of 'Fong Kong' Football
Oarabile Mosikare (2009)
In my wildest dreams I never thought I would own a soccer team. But here I am at 29, possibly the world's youngest team owner. And the most stressed in Botswana, if not the world. It's no joke to run a team. Ask Jomo Sono, Patrice Motsepe and Roman Abramovich.
Of course I'm still waiting to become as rich and powerful as they are. My team is just a social soccer side playing in an informal league known round these parts as the "Sunday Times" because of when we play.
The Sunday Times "league" has taken Botswana by storm. Matches are organised mostly by word of mouth and the teams include a few old men, but the bulk are wild and badly behaved youngsters -- some as young as 15.
My team -- Industrial Super Stars, so named after the scrapyard area in Itekeng where the majority of our players live -- is made up of disgruntled and uncontrollable alcoholics without any soccer skills to boast about. My bunch was rejected by other Sunday Times soccer clubs.
In my quest to be Motsepe, I took the opportunity to name and organise the team. But finding them before a match is more complicated, especially at the end of the month. After payday, the team owner has to endure moving from one drinking hole to another in search of his players.
One of the unique things about the Sunday Times soccer league is that the usual football rules and regulations are relaxed. So relaxed, most of them don't apply. A player can be substituted and come back into play later, as many times as he likes. A referee might smoke a cigarette during the game. The referee can also be substituted if one team feels he is biased in favour of the opponents. When this happens, the ref is likely to express his disgust at the decision by donning the kit of the team that stood by him when he was subjected to insults.
Alcohol and dagga abound and the players use them with abandon. Because most players are unemployed -- especially in my team -- pints of Chibuku, a traditional brew, are a regular feature at the games.
These players don't care if team "owners" and officials such as me are present when they take their dagga. They are very uncouth. They spew venom. They don't want to be shouted at like professional coaches shout at their players. They threaten to decamp to another side and there are plenty to choose from at the bottom of the league barrel.
In the worst scenario they threaten to form their own team that will be run and controlled by them without being subjected to civil behaviour lectures. The most foul-mouthed will tell you to your face that you don't own them and that just because you occasionally buy them pints of Chibuku, this doesn't make you better than them.
I have been told to go and write shit in the papers whenever I called some of my players to order. "Just because you write for newspapers doesn't mean you can lecture to us about good behaviour," I have been told countless times. It is a bit unfair because other football team owners, such as Sono, Motsepe and Abramovich, are not subjected to this treatment. By the same token, just because my bank balance hovers close to zero most of the time, it doesn't mean I should be subjected to this sort of treatment, I mutter to myself.
Although I'm not given the respect that I deserve, the team is happy to use the water in my house to wash the kit. I'm also the custodian of the kit, which is a raw deal. Come half time nobody listens to the coach. They don't want team talk. They just want alcohol and that foul-smelling green stuff.
One of the Industrial Super Stars officials is my younger brother. One recent Sunday we Mosikares were accused of having hijacked the team. Drunken debates ensued. I came up with the idea of forming a rival team to the neighbouring Itekeng Soccer Club when I realised that the majority of my present players were not being given a chance to prove themselves. To explain the set-up for a South African audience, let's put it this way: if Industrial Super Stars were a political party it would be Cope; Itekeng Soccer Club would be the ANC.
My breakaway plan was hatched in the middle of the month when I did not have money to buy team kit. So one of my cousins -- among those now accusing me and my brother of hijacking control -- went and bought the kit at one of the Chinese shops in town. It is a "fong kong" kit costing less than P200 (about R250).
I wanted to refund him so that I could be left to run my Industrial Super Stars the way I liked, but he refused. My cousin can be difficult to deal with. On the field he will agree to be substituted only when he wants to smoke a cigarette.
In our way my team is like a close-knit family. And like all families, we bicker. It's just as well we hardly ever win any matches -- when we do, the boys drink until they drop.
[Essay Friday] no.6
It’s a sunny day, so a sunny essay.
This week’s essayist is Alan Alexander Milne. In his day he was known as a fine chap who wrote for and edited Punch Magazine. Until a small bear came along and completely dwarfed all his previous works. This is one of the many essays he wrote for Punch. His musings on a cricket.
Bruce: A short study of a great life.
A.A. Milne (1907)
Bruce is a cricket. When I am lying awake o’ nights, thinking of all the wonderful things I am going to do on the morrow, Bruce is on his back, somewhere behind the boiler, singing to himself.
Looking back on the days when I first knew him, it seems strange to reflect that there was a time when I almost wanted to kill him. That was before I understood that he was really quite out of reach behind the boiler. The first night (how absurd it sounds now) I got out of bed with a slipper, tracked him three times round the room, and returned to bed very cold and mystified. The next day I spoke to the housekeeper about it, and learnt that I should never be able to get the slipper on to him properly.
On that night he sang more loudly than ever; the way he kept the note was wonderful. I decided to call him Bruce and, as he and the boiler were fixtures, to make the best of him. Even so I did not love him. The intrinsic merits of his song were few—the position from which he gave it argued a want of confidence in his powers.
And then I made a wonderful discovery. I was told by a man who knew a little more about crickets than I did that Bruce did not sing in the ordinary sense of the word, but that the chirping noise characteristic of him he made by rubbing his knees together. And the same with grasshoppers.
Now I invite you to consider what this really means. There is a heroism about this that is truly wonderful. Picture to yourself a hot August night on the one hand, myself in bed dropping comfortably off into a peaceful slumber—on the other hand, Bruce behind the boiler vigorously rubbing his knees together. The contract is a terrible one. I don’t know, but I should think that Bruce must be a Socialist by now.
Of course I want to know two things. First, how did Bruce get behind the boiler; secondly, why does he rub his knees together? There are seventy-two steps up to my rooms; if he came by the stairs it was a long and tiring journey for him, and there was always the chance of finding me out. Perhaps he came straight up the hot-water pipe—Excelsior!
I like the picture of him coming up the hot-water pipe. Probably he had others with him. They would take up position on the first three floors.
“Hallo, wherever are you off to?” they would say to Bruce, as they sat down and began to rosin their knees.
“How do you know there isn’t another floor?” Bruce would answer. “Anyhow I’m going to see.”
“Don’t be an ass. It’s warm enough here for anybody.”
“No, I think I’ll just go on a bit. There’s a chap up here who’s never heard Bluebell.’”
Perhaps, though, Bruce was born behind the broiler. I should be sorry to think that. I don’t like the idea of him taking advantage of the accidents of birth in this way. I prefer to regard him as a self-made cricket.
My knowledge of Bruce is contemptible. I don’t even know why he wants to rub his knees together so violently. Is it merely a nervous spasmodic twitching? Oh no, it cannot be that. It may be with the others, but not with Bruce. But if he does it deliberately, does he never get tired? Do his knees never wear out? When does he take nourishment?
That brings me to another point. What does Bruce eat? He might possibly tap the boiler for hot water now and then, but how does he manage for food? Is his diet animal, vegetable, or mineral? Mineral, it would appear …
It is twelve o’clock. I have a hard day’s work, and I am tired. There is no noise save from the direction of the boiler. As I lie awake, my thoughts are with Bruce. He has abandoned his whole soul to his song. For one moment, it is true, I am tempted to say, “Confound the beast, why won’t he let me go to sleep?” But then I think of his noble unselfish life. I think of his unceasing labor and of his love for music. And I recall, too, how in the face of disappointments which would have soured and embittered the life of another, he has remained cheerful. For while hustlers have sung hymns in praise of the bee, and have recommended the sluggard to the ant, no one has yet done justice to the tireless life of the cricket…
Bruce, I raise the water-bottle to you. More power to your knees!
This week’s essayist is Alan Alexander Milne. In his day he was known as a fine chap who wrote for and edited Punch Magazine. Until a small bear came along and completely dwarfed all his previous works. This is one of the many essays he wrote for Punch. His musings on a cricket.
Bruce: A short study of a great life.
A.A. Milne (1907)
Bruce is a cricket. When I am lying awake o’ nights, thinking of all the wonderful things I am going to do on the morrow, Bruce is on his back, somewhere behind the boiler, singing to himself.
Looking back on the days when I first knew him, it seems strange to reflect that there was a time when I almost wanted to kill him. That was before I understood that he was really quite out of reach behind the boiler. The first night (how absurd it sounds now) I got out of bed with a slipper, tracked him three times round the room, and returned to bed very cold and mystified. The next day I spoke to the housekeeper about it, and learnt that I should never be able to get the slipper on to him properly.
On that night he sang more loudly than ever; the way he kept the note was wonderful. I decided to call him Bruce and, as he and the boiler were fixtures, to make the best of him. Even so I did not love him. The intrinsic merits of his song were few—the position from which he gave it argued a want of confidence in his powers.
And then I made a wonderful discovery. I was told by a man who knew a little more about crickets than I did that Bruce did not sing in the ordinary sense of the word, but that the chirping noise characteristic of him he made by rubbing his knees together. And the same with grasshoppers.
Now I invite you to consider what this really means. There is a heroism about this that is truly wonderful. Picture to yourself a hot August night on the one hand, myself in bed dropping comfortably off into a peaceful slumber—on the other hand, Bruce behind the boiler vigorously rubbing his knees together. The contract is a terrible one. I don’t know, but I should think that Bruce must be a Socialist by now.
Of course I want to know two things. First, how did Bruce get behind the boiler; secondly, why does he rub his knees together? There are seventy-two steps up to my rooms; if he came by the stairs it was a long and tiring journey for him, and there was always the chance of finding me out. Perhaps he came straight up the hot-water pipe—Excelsior!
I like the picture of him coming up the hot-water pipe. Probably he had others with him. They would take up position on the first three floors.
“Hallo, wherever are you off to?” they would say to Bruce, as they sat down and began to rosin their knees.
“How do you know there isn’t another floor?” Bruce would answer. “Anyhow I’m going to see.”
“Don’t be an ass. It’s warm enough here for anybody.”
“No, I think I’ll just go on a bit. There’s a chap up here who’s never heard Bluebell.’”
Perhaps, though, Bruce was born behind the broiler. I should be sorry to think that. I don’t like the idea of him taking advantage of the accidents of birth in this way. I prefer to regard him as a self-made cricket.
My knowledge of Bruce is contemptible. I don’t even know why he wants to rub his knees together so violently. Is it merely a nervous spasmodic twitching? Oh no, it cannot be that. It may be with the others, but not with Bruce. But if he does it deliberately, does he never get tired? Do his knees never wear out? When does he take nourishment?
That brings me to another point. What does Bruce eat? He might possibly tap the boiler for hot water now and then, but how does he manage for food? Is his diet animal, vegetable, or mineral? Mineral, it would appear …
It is twelve o’clock. I have a hard day’s work, and I am tired. There is no noise save from the direction of the boiler. As I lie awake, my thoughts are with Bruce. He has abandoned his whole soul to his song. For one moment, it is true, I am tempted to say, “Confound the beast, why won’t he let me go to sleep?” But then I think of his noble unselfish life. I think of his unceasing labor and of his love for music. And I recall, too, how in the face of disappointments which would have soured and embittered the life of another, he has remained cheerful. For while hustlers have sung hymns in praise of the bee, and have recommended the sluggard to the ant, no one has yet done justice to the tireless life of the cricket…
Bruce, I raise the water-bottle to you. More power to your knees!
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